Svalbard!
Norway is part of Scandinavia and the Nordic countries and....wait a minute, complex? Just a bit. Let's clarify
In the strictest definition Scandinavia consists of Sweden, Norway and Denmark. They share common culture, and their languages are very similar. The languages of Scandinavian countries share many common routes with German and aren't terribly difficult to "get" by English speakers. Sometimes this definition is expanded to include Finland, sometimes Iceland, and even in some instances Greenland (an autonomous region of Denmark). This is not correct by the strictest definition, but rather refers instead to the Nordic countries. In all, the cultures of all of the Norse countries share common roots, Scandinavians just share more than their Icelandic and Finnish neighbors. In fact Finnish language has entirely different roots as an Uralic language and the country was initially considered a Baltic state upon gaining independence from the Russian empire. Icelandic culture and language has its own wild kookyness involving linguistic isolation and them all basically being vikings with day jobs. More on Iceland at some later juncture, don't you worry.
kooky huh?
As for Svalbard, You've gotta travel far to the north of Norway where Norway shares a border with both Finland and Sweden as well as Russia. There, far to the north of the northern coast lies the archipelago well above the arctic circle known as Svalbard. It's north of northern Norway, a Norse nation!
Ok, done with the alliteration for now.
Svalbard has a population of over 2500 with this largely centered around the primary settlement and capital of the region Longyearbyen on the island of Spitsbergen. Primary industries are mining, tourism and research.
Why's Svalbard a pretty badass place?
You'll notice, as time goes on, that I have a penchant for the cold, and places like this fascinate me. A center of arctic research and tourism, Svalbard also has an interesting history. It was initially a lawless "arctic wild west" of sorts, with French, English, Dutch and Danish settlements being established for arctic commerce. After WWI complete sovereignty of the island was handed over to Norway in the treaty of Svalbard (creative eh?), but this treaty allowed for access by all signatory nations. Russians maintained a heavy presence on the island until 1941 when all Norwegian and Russian settlements were evacuated and the island was occupied by the Germans. The only remaining garrison of Norwegians was taken by force in 1943 during Operation Zitronella, only to be relieved by allied forces. After the end of the war a heavy Soviet force remained on the island in camps like Barentsburg and Pyramiden, attempting to provide a model for soviet-style communism in the Arctic. Upon the collapse of the soviet block, however the Russian presence in Svalbard, though still the largest non-Norwegian population, has rapidly declined.
Russia maintains a consulate in Barentsburg, and the town relies on Russia almost entirely for food and supplies. The Russian consulate in Barentsburg is the northernmost political mission in the world, but population and conditions therein continue to decline despite some attempts to begin its own tourism industry to compete with that of Longyearbyen. Notably this is also the location of the second northernmost bust of Lenin in the world with the northernmost being located in the abandoned Russian mining town of Pyramiden, 100 kilometers to the northeast, also on the island of Spitsbergen.
Additionally Svalbard is home to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault; a kind of safe deposit box for seeds. Built 120 meters into the sandstone mountain and with all deposits protected by a network of airlocks the building houses more than 400,000 seed samples from depositing gene banks around the world stored at -18 degrees Celsius. The front of the vault is adorned with a lighting installation designed by Dyveke Sanne, symbolizing the importance of light. It reflects polar light during the summer, and lets off a green hue via fiber optic cables during the winter making the vault visible from quite far away.
Why, you might ask, would one install a piece of public art on a building located only 1300 kilometers from the north pole, on a sparsely populated island which doesn't even have permanent on-site staff? Because Norwegian law dictates that all government-funded construction costing over a certain amount (though I am hard-pressed to find that number) must include artwork. In short, they had to! How awesome is that for a government regulation!
Not to mention the Aurora Borealis, Arctic wildlife, glaciers and other generically amazing stuff.
With a fast-growing arctic tourism sector and being one of the most accessible locations in the Arctic for research Svalbard is nothing short of fascinating. So, who wants to snowboard Newtontoppen (1,713 m/5,620 ft), and Perriertoppen (1,712 m/5,617 ft) with me? Night boarding has never been so easy with 24 hour days!
Of course I've never been here, or even to Scandinavia for that matter, so all of these photos are gleaned from google images. Let me know how you like this little destination info-dump! Hope you found at least some of this as fascinating as I did.
Keep stoked!
DeLue
